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tv   All In With Chris Hayes  MSNBC  February 27, 2014 5:00pm-6:01pm PST

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some good fights but you can see i'm already reporting them coming our way. right now my call. february 27th, 2014, clinton versus paul with clinton winning within 5. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts now. good evening from new york. stay officially day one of rabbigate. thanks to david wildstein, the man who the record called governor chris christie's eyes and ears inside the port authority. the man who said he got it when christie's deputy chief of staff said it was time for some traffic problems in ft. lee. we now know the traffic jam wasn't the only one on the table. in 15 pages of newly unredacted documents provided and released today by the new jersey legislature this guy, rabbi from
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south brunswick township pop up in the communication. he first sent a photo with house speaker john boehner later declaring the rabbi has officially pissed me off. he said we cannot cause traffic problems in front of his house, can we? he reposts, flights to tel aviv all mysteriously delayed. for his part he said he doesn't have a clue why that exchange happened. the good news that the newly unredacted documents don't implicate him in any way. the bad news is that david samson, the top pointee at the port authority is grabbing new fire from across the river. >> i believe then and i believe now, obviously given the multiplicity of law enforcement investigations underway, there is some serious question that there was a question of violation of federal and state laws. >> patrick foye, the director of the port authority launched an all out war on david samson, the port authority chairman.
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governor chris christie begs to differ. >> do you still stand by samson as your appointee? >> strongly. firmly. >> christie has had no problem throwing long time employees under the bus from his campaign manager to his eyes and ears inside the port authority, they're all gone. but christie is standing firmly behind samson. you see, sam son is not just a ran document appointee. in 2012 he was called the second most powerful man in new jersey politics. he has worked under four governors, democrats and republicans. he was the attorney general of new jersey. his legal career spans decades as the founding member of wolff and samson law firm. they go way back. he was christie's campaign counsel during his run for governor and then led his
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transition team. on inauguration day in 2010, samson was there. >> my name is david samson. over the past two weeks, served as governor-elect transition committee. >> he made him his top appointee. samson continued his work for his law firm and he and christie stayed close. when christie had a walk-through of the rnc in 2012, samson was there. when christie was campaigning last year, samson was there. when bridgegate broke, christie stood by his man. >> i sat and met for two hours yesterday with mr. samson. general samson. and i'm confident that he had no knowledge of this. >> two months after christie made those comments, the allegations of samson's conflicts of interests just keep rolling in. his firm represents the owner of the railroad construction company inc. they have won almost $16 million
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worth of contract work from the port authority since samson became the chairman of the port authority. some of those contracts samson voted on. mr. samson took public role in promoting and defending a del for the port authority to take over operations of the atlantic city airport. a deal that could ultimately lead the a lucrative purchase or lease agreement with the owner. but samson's firm was representing that same owner of the airport. samson recused himself from discussions and votes on the issue. samson's firm also represented the rockefeller group who is looking to develop property on a piece of land in hoe woken. two months after he nominated samson as chairman but before he was confirmed, the port authority paid $75,000 to commission a study on potential development. it took three years to complete the report. when it came back in 2013, the study found of the 19 blocks it lookds at, only the three blocks owned by samson's client were
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fit for redevelopment. rock feller group has since dismissed wolff samson. so forget for a moment traffic problems in ft. lee, forget bridgegate and ask why does david samson still have a job? we've reached out for comment and did not receive a response. we were also unable to reach david samson. correct one thing. i said john boehner is house majority leader. he is of course the speaker of the house. joining me now, tara dowdell. there is a bunch to get through. we talk about the conflicts of interest in a second. it always seemed to me that the person who holds chris christie's fate in his hands, the person who could really let the flood gates open is patrick foye. he has no loyalty to that governor. he is pointed on that side. he is the person who blew the whistle when he first found out about the traffic problems issue. now he is coming out and saying, this is a big deal. he is saying the chair of the
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port authority, that he in some sense is kind of reports to, does not have the moral authority to lead the organization. pass declaration of war. >> yes. and a very damming statement. for people watching, there has always been attention between new york and new jersey at the port authority. particularly at the upper echelons between chairman, the executive director and that tension is about what you got to in your opening. it is about resources about who controlled what resources. that's at the root of that tension. when you get into these different ties which is going to be very problematic for david samson, the ties between him and developers and different clients and them getting resources, contracts, opportunities from the port authority. that's problematic. >> there is an old statement. the scandal isn't what's illegal. it's what's legal. >> this in broad daylight has been the case. david samson is a close ally of
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governor christie. he help him win elections. he is rewarded with being pointed the chair of the port authority. at the same time he gets to stay at his law firm where he is a named partner and oh, look, that law firm happens to represent tons of people that are trying to do deals that the port authority can help them with. that in and of itself, right there, forget the traffic problems in ft. lee. that is a massive conflict of interest. you're talking about an $8 billion authority. >> the reason why people want to be the chair of the port authority is because of the amount of resources that it controls. when i was in the governor's office i held the position of director of appointments. my office made appointments to the port authority board. and i can tell you only the very closest, most supportive, most powerful person that is in the governor's circle gets that appointment. that is the plum in the state of new jersey for any powerful business person. so i will actually add, you said
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that you think patrick foye holds governor christie's fate in his hands. i would argue that david samson holds governor christie's fate in his hands. >> that is the fate. the reason we have seen, i would at least suggest as a possible theory of why certain people have been cast out. their relationships, despite the fact that samson is mentioned in the e-mails. that he is helping to us retaliate, a statement that is made at one point about pulling samson to a fight with new york over traffic closing. that david has not been cast aside. has not been severed ties to. if he were, david samson could really harm the governor. >> here's the other problem. david is very well respected. he was the attorney general when i was in the governor's office. he is respected by both democrats and republicans. so if he is going on push someone like him aside, there is going to be blowback of a major scale in addition to it, we
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don't know what david samson knows. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. there's developing news on yet another unsolved new jersey mystery. it is one we've been following very closely and i want to get to the bottom of it. here's the thing. why did the state part ways with its single largest sandy relief contractor? it is a question sandy victims have asked chris christie himself. >> why was hgi fired? why did you pay him $50 million and why did you privatize most -- why did you privatize most of the grant program? you didn't have to do that. >> i just disagree with you. >> hgi. that gentleman was talking about was the contractor that was tasked with overseeing the nearly billion-dollar post sandy housing programs. now in december, the state quietly signed a settlement ening the contract with the louisiana based contractor. they didn't bother to announce it until more than six weeks later. a state official who was addressing the homeowner concerns about the building
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process, during an assembly hearing didn't even bother to mention that the contract with hgi was ending. when it finally was revealed, satellite officials wouldn't say why it was ending or who was taking over oversight of the housing programs. they said that hgi services were not needed now. the folks at the advocacy group fair share housing and the "wall street journal" have turned up some documents indicating there were, quote, performance related issues that led the state to cancel the contract. they said within seven months, hgi billed nearly $52 million which was 76%. they said the state still owes them more than $18 million of the $52 million total and is trying to collect. that is $18 million of relief funding passed by taxpayers, meant to help victims of super
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storm sandy rebuild their homes. joining me now, heather has been covering this story for the "wall street journal." this is a mystery. is it fair to say that the state's story about the termination of this contract has changed over time? >> well, it is certainly them being able to speak about it has changed over time. like you said, they alluded to there were some performance issues but they didn't say outright they had been terminated. >> they said, well, it turns out we didn't need them. that we can handle all this work in house. they were not saying we're firing them. >> right. they were saying that we've moved on and the whole recovery process. we can do a better job. we can train front line staff better to be more personable and we're moving on from hgi. these documents were really illuminating. it is the first time we've gotten the night.
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dispute. they are saying they were asked to do much more work than they were contracted for and at a much quicker pace. the other interesting thing about this document, it seem there were some verbal agreement between state and hgi about being able to pay for all this work. it said -- >> don't worry about it. do this and we'll find the money. >> right. it seemed they would be paid all this, the $50 million and they had only gone through seven months of the contract. and then -- >> that's a lot of money. >> right. when it came time, the state had some dispute over it. >> right. so there is an $18 million outstanding. other part of context is there had been, hgi, one of the biggest programs is managing it. >> and the state is starting to acknowledge. they said the commissioner testified about this and a prominent republican on the committee criticized hgi for poor performance. that does seem to indicate the sxhaigs the republicans are
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acknowledging that hgi did a bad job in running this and need to start acknowledging it more vocally than they ever did before. >> and it always struck me as change, it turns out they were fired six weeks ago. it always struck me as odd. if you were confronted by a contract, an important function for your constituents and they were doing a bad job, why you would be just say they're doing a bad job. we are firing them and take the political credit for it. >> state nls in response to that question have said they don't publicize every time they terminate a contractor. >> heather haddon from the "wall street journal." thank you. i'll talk to one of the representatives in arkansas who is trying to repeal the state's medicaid expansion. he also happens to be a medicaid beneficiary. >> i'm nervous. not going to lie about it. this is a big decision. >> he joins me next. spokesperson: we decided to settle this.
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this is what happened in washington, d.c. a few hours ago. >> if i can persuade, you know, sharpton and o'reilly to be in the same meeting, then it means there are people of good faith who want to get some stuff done. even if we don't agree on everything. >> what brought those two men into the white house today. ahead. ♪ [ male announcer ] we don't just certify our pre-owned vehicles. we inspect, analyze, and recondition each one, until it's nothing short of a genuine certified pre-owned mercedes-benz for the next new owner. [ car alarm chirps ] hurry in to the mercedes-benz certified pre-owned sales event. visit today for exceptional offers. ♪ i'm a messy person. i don't like cleaning. i love my son, but he never cleans up. always leaves a trail of crumbs behind. you're going to have a problem with getting a wife. uh, yeah, i guess.
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[ laughs ] this is ridiculous. christopher glenn! [ doorbell rings ] what is that? swiffer sweep & trap. i think i can use this. it picks up everything. i like this. that's a lot of dirt. it's that easy! good job chris! i think a woman will probably come your way. [ both laugh ] right now a small group of ultra conservative republicans are threatening to roll back an expansion of medicaid under the affordable care act that has provided health insurance for about 100,000 people in arkansas.
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the state passed the medicaid expansion last year with bipartisan support thanks to a compromise called the private option in which federal money is used to purchase private insurance plans for those who would qualify for the medicaid expansion. that compromise made arkansas one of the very few states in the south to accept the federal medicaid money and expand for low income residents. it still has support for members of both parties. in, a arkt takes 75 out. 100 house hoevotes. this time around supporters don't have the votes. after multiple attempts to pass the bill failed, the 27 republicans blocking passage sent a letter of the house speaker declaring an impasse has occurred and requesting a meeting to discuss a way forward. these lawmakers aren't just threatening to take health care away from 100,000 people who now have it. they're actually blocking the bill that funds the entire program. one of the lawmakers, one of the people blocking the bill because he wants to block the medicaid
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expansion is this guy. state representative josh miller and he has a pretty amazing story. >> not only is he a young politician, he is also a quadriplegic. he admits a car accident with a friend involving alcohol put him in this chair. >> we're very fortunate they drug two boys with heart beats up out of that ravine. >> nearly a decade after that accident, josh miller was elected to the arkansas house. joining me now is arkansas state representative josh miller. thank you for joining me only the. the first question is, as i look at this situation play out, why would you try to take 100,000 people off health insurance they already have? >> thank you for having me. and number one, i would like to clarify that nobody in our group is wanting to take 100,000 people off of this coverage that colonelly exists. we simply want to slow down the
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enrollment process and move at a more responsible way, moving forward so that we have an opportunity to come back in the next legislative session next year and better mold this program for several reasons. >> but that's a bit of a change from where the position was initially. you were one of the people that voted against this expansion to begin with. when the impasse over this bill started, the demand, all the reporting suggests the demand coming from your caucus was actually to get rid of the private option. that's pretty documented. >> well, i don't think we understand that that is not likely to happen. what we would like to see is a compromise reached where we can move forward. where those of us who will return next year have an opportunity to study hard facts and hard numbers and move forward. we have in arkansas, unlike
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washington, d.c., and i'm very proud of this fact. we have the revenue stabilization act which by law forces the state of, a, a to have a balanced budget. in the year 2017, arkansas will have to start picking up our portion of the cost of this expansion. >> that's only 5%, right? >> it is in 2017. the bottom line is, when i took office at the beginning of 2013, we had a medicaid program in our state that was currently in the red. we were taking steps to fix that. the bottom line is even if it is 5%, 3% or 10%, which quickly goes to 10%, the bottom line is the money isn't there. we've got to have a way to figure out how to get that money before we can move forward. >> representative, the private option is to save the state $670
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million over the next decade. >> well, those numbers are very debatable, chris. i think would you find other numbers that would indicate otherwise. the bottom line is, in 2017, we have to start picking up the cost. we'll be faced with three options. either kicking the folks off the program who have signed up in good faith, and that is a horrible option. raising taxes, that's another bad option. or three would be cutting much needed other services that our state provides. >> representative, i have to ask you this. i read about your story which is really remarkable, and what you were able to do in the midst of that accident. but it is the case, right? when that accident happened, it was very expensive. about $1 million as i understand the medical bills. that the medicaid program itself
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picked up a significant portion of that, isn't that right? >> that is correct, chris. and i would like to take this opportunity to humbly thank the american people and the people of arkansas for helping me out. because without those programs, i know that i wouldn't be here. that's one of the reasons that i've dedicated my life to public service as an opportunity to help out my community. i would also like -- i would like to note that the medicaid program that was there for me, and has been there for thousands and thousands of other arkansans, the traditional medicaid program is not what's being debated here in arkansas. as a matter of fact, one of the biggest reasons that i've been fundamentally opposed to the private option plan is because i don't want to take a chance on, in three years, traditional medicaid for those who are most needy, those with
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catastrophicics dents, off the those traditional medicaid services cut. >> there are 100,000 people, this is just an expansion. they are not wealthy. they are 133% of the federal poverty line, right? take a listen to one woman who is now getting parkinson's treatment who is on this medicaid expansion. >> mary francis perkins says she is just starting to get the proper treatment for her parkinson's and cannot imagine losing ground. >> it would just be a nightmare. it would be -- i would feel like my government had absolutely turned their back on me. >> so why is not she deserving of that same kind of social contract? >> chris, i believe that this woman may be. i don't know her personally and i don't know her situation. again, i will say that we have laid proposals on the table here in the state of arkansas that
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would allow, that would not end this program for the 100,000 people signed up. as a matter of fact, they would continue and we would come back in 2015 after we've had a year to study the numbers. we're being asked to gamble with the taxpayers money and we have a nation that is already $17 trillion in debt. and the state of arkansas does not need to go down that same path. and we can't by law. so we're just trying to take, we're trying to take a responsible look at how we best move forward. i don't think there's anybody in the arkansas legislature that wants to deny somebody health care. >> that was the bottom line. >> that was not the case. >> representative, that was not the case when you and some of them voted against the medicaid expansion last year and you started objecting to this bill. i hope you can find common ground. the whole nation is watching
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helping you figure it out. i really do appreciate you coming on tonight. thank you very much. >> thank you, chris. >> remember the ceo of exxonmobil who opposed a water tower that could be used in his own backyard but seemed fine with it elsewhere? >> a million wells, you can find where most of them are. go out and talk to people. if there was a problem, state regulators would have already been all over this. >> the response from one of the former top executives at the mobile part of exxonmobil next. [ fishing rod casting line, marching band playing ]
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we brought you the story of the pro fractioning ceo mogul who is now suing. lawsuit, a use the tower which would be used for fracking would be traffic hazards. the former house majority leader dick armey. they are just concerned about the value of their luxury properties worth multiple millions of dollars. it has taken off online. it was top of read it politics for two days. there is a petition pledging to support him in his effort if he would return the favor. we need your help to protect people everywhere from fracking. not just your backyard. and the lawyer representing the
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lawyer said nothing could be further from the truth. hanson, the controller of cross timbers water supply corpse said the new water tower is needed to meet growing residential and commercial demand in the area. rex tillerson shouldn't feel so lonely because there is another member of the exxonmobil family who is also fighting fracking. our next guest is the former executive and vice president and operating officer for exploration and production in the u.s., canada and latin america for the mobile oil corporation. a man who worked for exxon mobile six months after that merger. he has written a letter saying, you go, girl. he writes for the past five years i have been actively trying to keep your company and the rest of the 40 from fracking here. you and i love the places where we live but in the enif they are ruined by fracking or frac water tanks, we can afford to go somewhere else. but many people cannot afford to
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move away when they can no longer drink the water or breathe the air because they are too close to one of your well pads or couple pressor statements. his lawyer has decline to provide a comment. nothing further was forthcoming after another request today. an exxonmobil spokesman says, mr. tillerson, we do not object to the tower for its potential use for water and gas operations for fracking. so i think the thing that we all get about this tillerson case, a classic not in my backyard. i want to turn that around out and say we generally look askew at activism. there are certain things that have to be built and property owners don't want them built. isn't all fracking anti-fracking protests, including yours? >> i think some people could look at and it say that. i think other people take a
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broader view of it and say, continue to rely on fossil fuels is a serious problem. and that it is having major climate effects. we need to start switching to alternatives. >> you worked for this country for 30 years. at what appointment did you come to see this? >> well, i actually retired. i was in oil and gas and about five years ago, people who knew that i had worked in the industry asked me what i thought about drilling wells close to the lake that draws drinking water for cooperstown whir live. i said, well, that's silly. that no one would put a well that close. when i started looking into it, those regulations were just woefully inadequate allowing wells very close to people's homes. allowing disposal of cuttings,
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all sorts of things. >> you also say in your letter, these issues are legitimate. you're talking about the concerns about water and noise. these issues are legitimate but they are localized. i am now much more concerned. these are global problems. only a major shift toward renewable energy sources can begin to mitigate their catastrophic climate impact. do you think folks like tillerson and folks inside the oil industry that you spend your entire adult career original do they recognize what they are doing? >> they have started to since the early 2000s. i think that's when people started seriously worrying about it. it was just barely coming to the surface when i was still working before 2000. but it is clearly become more and more obvious.
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more and more scientists, 97% of climate scientists say that global warming is a real issue and we have to do something about it. and one piece of evidence that the companies do know that it is a problem is that many large energy companies and large energy consumers has started building an assumed carbon tax into their economic projections. so they're actually recognizing it internally and at the same time, denying it externally. >> what do you want to see rex tillerson in this tremendously powerful position do, and not just the lawsuit about the water tower. but as the head of exxon. >> well, one thing he could do, i think the water tower is something that just precipitated this conversation. but one thing that he could do is actually openly acknowledge the fact that something has to
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be done to change and shift away from fossil fuels. and to support some climbed of a carbon fee, carbon tax that would help push us in that direction. >> thanks so much for your time. >> thank you. up next, what government spies managed to pick up by spying on web cams. here's a behind. just what do you think people use webcams for? that's ahead. when i go in there,st, i want to be awesome too. so i've totally gone pro with crest pro-health.
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do you remember a few years back this crazy story about a school that gave students laptops and was then accused of turning on those computers' web cams remotely without informing the kids or parents. eventually the school confronted a student producing a photo of him in his room with what looked like drugs. the fbi got involved. parents and students alike were outraged and a settlement was eventually reached. i can think of a no more intimate way of spying on people
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than by using their web cams. it turns out the british version of the nsa known as gchq has been doing something not too different with millions of people with help from our very own nsa. the beginning of 2008, gchq conducted a wide reaching surveillance program known as arctic nerve. it saved images to data bases regardless of whether individual users were suspected of any wrongdoing. and you'll never guess what they found. basically, and i'm overstating here just slightly, people use web cams for two things. to talk to their grandkids as my parents do with my toddler, and in the words of gchq, to show intimate parts of their body to the other person. and shockingly broadcasting pornography. in fact there were such vast quantities of quote, undesirable nudity, the british agency
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struggled to store all of it and keep it away from the prying eyes of their staffers and they were shocked by this calling the sheer number of people who did this, surprising. what could an intelligence agency want with all of those faces? automated facial recognition, monitoring existing suspects and discovering new ones. does a database of people's faces captured under no suspicion and acquired by hacking a third party business strike you as a massive violation of the most basic and universal right to privacy? it sure does to me. i venture it would to anyone who found out they were on the wrong side of it. and a twenty-megapixel sensor. it's got the brightest display, so i can see what i'm shooting -- even outdoors, and 4 mics that capture incredible sound. plus, it has apps like vine -- and free cloud storage. my new lumia icon is so great, even our wipeouts look amazing. ♪ honestly, i want to see you be brave ♪ ♪
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thinking about the harm that it could do. i didn't always take school as seriously as i should have. i made excuses. sometimes i sold myself short. the only difference is that i grew up in an environment that was a little more forgiving. >> that was the president today being quite frank and personal about his past. before nousing a new initiative that deems to help the would be barack obamas around the country. speaking to a pack room that included the parents of trayvon martin, al sharpton to bill o'reilly, he described his my brother's keeper initiative. he will be pushing associations
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to help young help of color overcome the profound effects of racism to meet their potential. he made his case in terms of how it would benefit not just the boys in question but the nation as a whole. >> the fact too many of them are falling by the wayside. dropping out. unemployed. involved in negative behavior, going to jail. cycles of homelessness breeds violence and mistrust. and our country is a little less than what we know it can be. so we need to change the statistics. not just for the sake -- and boys but for the sake of america's future. >> for most of his five plus years in office the president has strenuously and stood justly avoided framing any of his policies that specifically targeted black america and people of color.
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for that reason today felt like a real break-through. here it was first black president with black boys behind him talking about the brute fact life for them in america is more difficult. the question now is, will what the president announce today succeed in making it easier? from washington, d.c., senior adviser with the u.s. programs division. open society foundations. he was at the launch in the president's unusual i have the today and is participating in its implementation. and here with me in new york, the associate professor of history, director of the institute. you were in the room today. what was it like to be there? >> well, thanks for having me again. there were so many emotions. and having had a chance to be in that room, it felt different. it felt different from any other time we've had this kind of audience with president obama or anyone in the cabinet or in the
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white house. it felt different. i think folks were generally eager. that we can finally drive some formative change. not just talk about the issues. not just lift up young men individually but break down barriers. people felt appreciated. i hope young men of color around the country felt like finally someone is speaking for them. speaking directly to them and walking with them for an incredibly long journey to make sure we have real change in this country. >> it is interesting you talk about the systemic factors. i want to talk about where, on the spectrum of solutions to the problems that young men of color face, kind of target pilot programs which seem to me to be a good idea to experiment with different interventions that
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would help. empower people. if we had for instance, the unemployment rate. right now for young people in this country, between 16 and 19 years old, black, 38%, white, 17.5%. that is a big problem to begin with before we get to anything else. before we get to this solution, i want to talk to you all three about the kind of rhetoric here. the embedded premises. the fact of the matter in american life is that young men of color are disproportionately likely to be x, y and z. in the criminal justice system, poor, unemployed, all these things are true as empirical statements. at the same time you don't want to reinforce the stereo type about young men of color. that play a role in producing precisely those statistics. >> right. when we have that conversation we never say young people of color are less likely to binge
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drink than their white counter parts. we don't have the conversation. we don't look at this in the full totality. we understand. why you want to generate sympathy and you want to generate a sentiment that people will say we need to summon our moral courage and our resources to address these things. but it is difficult to look at it and say who are we really talking about? is the humanity of these young people being missed in the conversation. >> yeah. i'm actually quite concerned with the conversation that focuses on personal and moral responsibility and failings as the cause for the deepening equality. we know that there are lots of areas where there is system attic and structural and persist ten inequality in employment, housing, in incarceration. all these areas where we can look quite explicitly at practice that's lead, social
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practices. >> the president has had these exchanges about precisely this. the peace criticizing him and he kind of responded through the person of david remnick saying people get on my case, i talk about personal responsibility. it is both so why are you giving me a hard time? >> because philanthropy is not policy. this is a philanthropic endeavour. the critique is about the absence of policy. >> i want to get your response to this and talk about what you think can come out of this. i want to talk about incredible statistics about black fathers that i think will tweak or turn around a lot of people's conceptions right after this break. the volkswagen passat against all comers. turbocharged engines against...engines.
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we're back. before we went to break we kind of zeroed in on this question about the structural factor, the structural economic factors and racial factors that play a role in the difficulties young men of color face and how you overcome them through small targeted policy interventions. you've been in your capacity to work on pilot programs. what's your feeling about that? >> i'm actually new to philanthropy. i spent most of my career as a civil rights attorney. i made a living, really, my life's cause to break down those barriers and that's still what i'm doing with philanthropy. people have to understand, today's foundations are bringing us campaigns like the campaign for achievement throughout the
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country. based in miami. the sons and brothers initiative out of california. forward promise. we know that there is a lot of action oriented work that philanthropy is moving. it is not just moving dollars around. we're happy to see that there is alignment. we're looking for big gains, transfor transformative change. they won't settle for anything else. so talking about the issues isn't sufficient. aware trying to build a long term game plan. we know it won't happen in 90 days or maybe nine years but we know over a longer term game plan, we can do thing like not just change the images we've seen in media and film but also address the deep psychological and historical factors that will lead folks to deval you've or not value the humanity of black people and brown people. we want to lift up our brothers, our sons, our cousins in ways that haven't been done before on
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the national stage. >> i agree with his point. what the president is doing is good. i'll go on the record and say. that but it is also not sufficient. what we're understanding is that -- >> i don't think he would say it is. >> i don't think he would say. that but what happens at the end of this? we produce more young black men who are college graduates. that's great. we have a higher unemployment rate for black college graduates than white college graduates. we have a higher unemployment rate. a black college graduate has the average lifetime -- a black college graduate has on average the same lifetime earnings as a white high school graduate. he sow these issues we're talking about. we're looking at the limits of the obama presidency. and -- >> any presidency. >> we have the marshall plan.
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we understand what it did in europe after world war ii. even the war on poverty or the new deal. >> here's my concern. because this is not the war on poverty or the new deal in materials of scale. what happens often with public/private partnerships, particularly when they're directed toward communities of fail. if they fail, the argument is we tried to help them and it didn't work. it is not a matter of a failure to actually try the take hold of opportunity. it is a deeper structural issue. it can't just be addressed by pilot programs. >> let me play white house lawyer here for a second. so you're going to go, okay, we cannot even get government to stay open. so go over to capitol hill and say, fellas, great idea here. let's get about $50 billion together for sustained intervention in helping young black men. like no way! that's not happening. that's on the table. we can't even keep the government open. so this is seizing an tunnel that is a possible tunnel to
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seize to shed some light and to coordinate some private activity. >> that may be the case. at the very least we need to tell the truth about it. and i think there is a problem when we pretend this is something that will be hugely transcendent. it is wonderful if it helps the critical mass of young men and boys. but to bring the question of policy that could transform the lives in a more comprehensive fashion. >> right. and i agree with that. that's exactly what philanthropy is doing and civil rights and human rights advocates are in this for. may brother's keeper initiative, the important thing on realize is that a lot of this work has been happening in communities for a very long time. a lot of it has been funneleded through philanthropy and been engage in the by brothers, sisters, everyone on the ground for a very long time. we want to catapult the work forward.
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not just three years. >> thank you so much. a key statistic about the amount of time black men spend with their children as fathers, we will put that on our website. i think you might be surprised by these statistics. that's all for this evening. the rachel maddow show starts right now. >> thank you for joining us this hour. in the indictment, they show his real name. tony mack. which is an awesome new jersey politics name. but tony mack apparently was not a cool enough name. according to the indictment, at least, his aliases included napoleon, the little guy, and honey fitz. honey fitz was duly elected in 2010. in the year 2012 the fbi raided his house. the following day the fbi raided offices at trenton city hall. and in the fall of that year, cement